She looked down at the baby and found herself staring into the biggest, bluest, most trusting eyes she’d ever seen. Sherry flinched, her heart lurched, and she stiffened in defense.
She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to hold this sweet little bundle in her arms. It only served to remind her of her loss and aching emptiness and dreams shattered.
Clint raked a hand through his hair, again making the dark, rich strands stand on end. “When I opened the door this morning, there she was. She was in a car seat, and a diaper bag was next to her. There was a note tucked inside the blanket.” He gestured to a piece of paper on the table.
Sherry shifted the wiggling baby in her arms and picked up the note. She scanned the contents, the words creating a strange, new ache in her. She placed the note back on the table, then looked at Clint.
“Is she yours?” she asked softly. The question hung in the air between them.
Clint’s face blanched and he swiped a hand across his lower jaw. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I’ve consciously not thought about the possibility since the moment I read that note.”
“You’d better think about it now,” Sherry replied, fighting the odd ache the note had evoked. She’d wanted Clint to have children of his own, that’s why she’d broken their engagement so long ago.
“It’s hard to know, since I don’t know how old Kathryn is,” he replied.
Sherry shifted the baby from one arm to the other. As she did, she felt the warmth of a soggy diaper. She stood and placed Kathryn on her back on the table, then reached into the little bag and withdrew a diaper.
“I’d say she’s about six months old,” Sherry observed as she wrestled to change Kathryn, who laughed and kicked her feet. “So, who were you dating about fifteen months ago?” she asked.
Clint walked from the sink to the window. For a long moment he stared outside, his broad shoulders blocking the warm stream of sunshine. When he turned back to look at her, his brow was creased in thought. “It had to have been Candy.”
Sherry grimaced. Candy. The sexy divorcee from Kansas City. Sherry had hated the attractive, flirtatious woman the moment she’d met her. “Well, the note says the mother is in danger, that’s certainly not out of the question where Candy is concerned. She’s probably being threatened by some poor wife whose husband Candy was sleeping with.”
The left corner of Clint’s mouth rose upward. “You never did like Candy,” he observed.
“That’s probably the understatement of the year,” she returned. She finished with the diaper, then set Kathryn on her belly on the floor next to the table. “She was a man-eater, and you were her main dish.” Sherry closed her mouth, not wanting to say anything more, aware that the woman she was talking about just might be the mother of Clint’s child.
“Right now this is all speculation,” Clint said, his gaze on Kathryn, who was on her hands and knees and rocking as if by will alone she could scoot across the floor. He looked up at Sherry. “It’s possible the mother chose to leave her here because I’m sheriff, not because I’m related in any way.”
“Yeah, and it’s possible tomorrow I’ll be voted mayor of this town,” Sherry replied dryly.
She stood, needing to escape from this conversation, from the little girl who sat looking up at her as if somehow Sherry was her salvation. “She’s stopped crying now, her diaper is clean. Looks like you’re on your own, Sheriff Daddy.” She started for the kitchen door.
“Sherry…wait!” His voice held a note of utter panic. “I’ve got a favor to ask you.”
“No. Whatever you’re about to ask, the answer is no. You can cook me biscuits and gravy every morning for the rest of my life and the answer is going to be no.” She left the kitchen and headed for the front door.
“Sherry, please wait a minute. Hear me out,” he called after her.
She didn’t stop. She left the house and walked hurriedly toward her car. She had a feeling she knew exactly what he wanted, and there was no way, no how.
She’d just slid behind the steering wheel when Clint came barreling out of the house, Kathryn crying in his arms.
He raced to her open window. “Sherry, I need your help,” he said, once again having to raise his voice to be heard about Kathryn’s cries. “I need somebody to help me with her until I can figure out what’s going on. I need you to take off work a couple of days, stay here and help me out.”
“You’re crazy,” she exclaimed, trying to ignore the plea in his gorgeous blue eyes. “What do I know about taking care of a baby?” she asked, trying to keep the bitterness from her voice.
“You knew which end to diaper,” he returned evenly. “I imagine you can figure out which end to feed. What else do you need to know?”
Sherry said nothing.
“I’ll pay you for your time…whatever your average earnings at the bar are, I’ll double them. Sherry, I’m desperate here. I can’t stay home for the next several days and leave this town without a sheriff.”
Sherry wanted to tell him it was his problem, that it was really none of her concern. She wanted to slam the car into reverse and escape, but she didn’t. She sighed wearily and rubbed the center of her forehead—a headache was just beginning to send tentacles of pressure around her head.
“Sherry.” Clint leaned down, so close she could see the silvery flecks that made his eyes so startlingly blue, close enough that she could smell the familiar scent of his pleasant cologne.
“Sherry, please. If you care about me at all, do this for me.” He lightly stroked the top of the baby’s head. “If…if she is mine, you’re the only one I’d trust to watch her.”
Something in his eyes, something in their soft appeal, touched her in places in her heart she thought no longer existed.
In an instant of staring into his eyes’ blue depths, she remembered too many moments from the distant past, too many dreams that would never come true.
Damn him. She knew exactly what he was attempting to do. He was calling not only on their friendship, but on the love they’d once felt for each other.
And in that instant she thought she might hate him just a little bit, for knowing her well enough to be able to try to manipulate her emotions.
He reached out and curled his fingers around her wrist. His fingers were warm against her skin—skin that she knew was frigid and achingly cold.
“Please, Sherry,” he entreated. “You’ll never know how much it will mean to me,” he said. “I’ve never really asked you for anything before now.”
She jerked her arm away from him, her anger returning to sustain her original decision. “And you, of all people, should realize just what you’re asking of me,” she returned, trying to keep her tone cool and even. “You, of all people, should know I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
Without waiting for any reply, she shifted the car into reverse and pulled out of the driveway.
Chapter Two
Clint stared after the disappearing car, Kathryn’s cries a resounding siren in his ears. He looked at the baby in his arms. Once again her face was red, her eyes squeezed shut as high-pitched noise spewed from her little mouth. How could something so small make such an incredible amount of noise?
Her cries momentarily overrode Clint’s feeling of guilt. He carried the baby back into the house, trying to avoid thinking about the look on Sherry’s face as she’d driven off.
A bottle. Maybe the baby was hungry. He